Marketing Clips in Multimedia Format

Agree with ya Terry. I'd love to sell my clips for $10,000 a piece, and pond5 can keep their 50% :-).
I would like it that P5 would sell web sized...since it is already being offered elsewhere, and most of us contribute at multiple places.

If you are approaching four figures with $5 payouts you are indeed short changing yourself and others. The days of $200-1000 stock photos are definitely not gone. I do it many times each month, I do not sell to the micros and many don't. The buyer does not control the prices, the low priced sales control the price wars. When an agency charges lower prices and then only pay the submitter 20-30% , the agency is not hurt, just the submitters. Many agencies have raised prices to help offset the lower commissions to submitters, IS is an example that people like to use. Many of the bigger bottom line makers for both P5 and themselves (if not all of them here) sell for far more than the average. Their footage is not the best quality, some is some isn't. Rock bottom sales will not increase profit. The list of people who have raised their prices and make more afterward is very large. The buyers understand production value, that's why they come here. Give them production value, save them money, improve their profit but not at the expense of your own. This discussion has been hashed many times here. Some don't like it, and have got personal, no need of that. Here at P5, the bigger monthly payouts go to the people with the higher value products and cost clips. Do what you think is best for you, keep pricing low or make it fair and be able to buy a new Canon 5D MKII each month.

Thanks for your great answer phantemetwo. I don't take the discussion personally at all. It's fun. If you are restricting some of your portfolio to high end sites, maybe I should take the cue from you. I'm listening. I am learning and just exploring the nature of pricing from the perspective of formats. If you can clarify, I don't see how we can assume we are undercutting ourselves by offering different formats for different prices. Some search for HD/SD/PAL for broadcast content, some are little joes building websites. Different offerings for different customers seems logical to me while waiting for the HD big fish doesn't. One dish for all diners is a strange cafe. It seems odd to make the assumption the buyer would buy an HD shot regardless of ultimate use - it disregards the other options the buyer has and the marketplace. You may be undercutting yourself.

I don't price my shots here at rock bottom but at competitive prices. $50 for HD clips ($65 for unique shots), $30 for SD/PAL and $10 - $15 for the smallest web sized clips. These prices seem realistic to me and competitive. We all have the choice to submit where we choose. But Pond5 gives the contributor the choice to submit viruality any content and set the price. Shots with production value / hot content rise to the top. Price is a real factor there somehow, no?

At iStock, where the bulk of my 5 - 7 buck sales come from. I don't have a choice at all as iStock down converts and has their own pricing scheme. Why would they offer different formats at different prices if they could sell only the HD clips for the choice price? For the sake of debate, do you think I should withdraw my portfolio from there as they under cut the market? Do you sell there?

http://blog.johnlund.com/2010/03/jim-pickerell-interviewed-end-of-stock.html

Here at P5 we are very sucessful, I would hope that with the ability to set our own pricing we do not contribute to the decline of sales and profitability as described in the article above. Just becasue some artists live in low income countries and reduce prices to that level it will only lead to an overall decline and loss of the business as a professional venture. P5 is very fair compared to other agencies both in price and commissions. Let's keep professional and not encourage a more rapid decline.

That was a great article Ionescu. I printed it out to study it. It doesn't particularly support or attack the venue/format/pricing issue at all, but it certainly re-enforces my initial statements concerning the nature of the micro stock marketplace. Attempting to take a principled stance about the decline of micro stock prices and the degradation of the marketplace is kinda like objecting to globilization. You might as well argue about the sun coming up. It's going to happen. The question is, how do you position yourself inside a changing market. My approach, many venues, many formats, many prices, is a strategy. That's it. It's not an attempt to undercut anyone else. I don't find the assertion concerning "contribute to the decline of sales and profitability" convincing and no one is responding to the specific questions I have asked above other than with unsupported statements. Convince me.

"The price a stock photo will sell for depends entirely on what the customer is willing to pay and that depends on the use the customer intends to make of the image... Those who insist on only licensing their image for high prices are doing themselves a disservice. Their egos are getting in the way of making sound business decisions.... The more a photographer insists on negotiating every deal the fewer opportunities he will have to license rights to his images because an ever growing segment of the customer base doesn’t want to take the time to negotiate."

See: http://www.photolicensingoptions.com/ViewArticle.aspx?code=JHP2173

Restricting access/pricing is another strategy. After getting this machine up and running here for 2 months I am going to press the universal re-pricing option to $65 for all clips, regardless of format and run that for a couple months. It will be an interesting test. Perhaps you're correct. Who knows?

Here's an interesting article from the NYTimes about the stock photo market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html?emc=eta1

Smudlack feel free to try whatever you want.

That article is why in the past ive always said doing mundane shots is bad, because you are going to be hit by a tidal wave, tons of people with extroidinary cameras will also try to do mundane shots, doing things other people simply Cant do (either with lack of cg experience or whatever)...and making them distinctive, and to create a following I think is the only way to somewhat safegaurd yourself.

lol Don Whats with all this talk of being "professional" :P
Whos coming up with these rules of professionalism.

Not to sound like Morpheus/ but....
"professionalism" is an illusion, a company manager doesnt make his employees wear ties because it makes him do his job better, he makes them wear ties because it makes the worker "feel" more professional ....turning him into a better worker bee. Don't think "Professional" think "Rockstar," its show business, not an insurance firm. :P

LOL, you are right, there are so many different definitions of professional. Like one site SS says turn your hobby into money. So I guess they only want people doing a hobby to sell, yes there are "pros" there too ....maybe ;). I guess part of what "I" feel is pro is quality products at a fair price for both sides. Some people are more interested in the number of sales and others are "pro" in that that are trying to earn a living or partial living doing this. That is what has happened in the micro stock photo world, hobby or aspiring photogs (due to very inexpensive and good quality cameras) have an opportunity to see their photo in a magazine or billboard and that is more important than trying to make a living.
I was definitely not calling anyone here a professional or amateur or hobby photog. It was more of purpose of doing stock as a hobby or as a living. ;)

Man you always bring up that hobby thing on SS, that really gets you huh... I see where your coming from but this is like the 800th time I have heard you talk about that.